Organization announces first wave of special guests for next year’s show

San Diego – Comic-Con International: San Diego (Comic-Con), the largest comic book convention of its kind in the world, will open its Comic-Con 2011 attendee registration for four-day and one-day passes at 9 a.m. PT on Monday, November 1 at Comic-Con.org. In advance of the occasion, the organization today announced the first 20 special guests for its 2011 show.

Jordi Bernet, Dave Gibbons, Alan Davis, Jonathan Hickman, Jamal Igle, and Patricia Briggs are just a few of the special guests scheduled to take part in Comic-Con 2011. Four-day passes for last year’s convention were sold out eight months prior to the show, and one-day passes were gone by April.

“2010 was the fourth straight year in which we reached a self-imposed attendance capacity,” said David Glanzer, Comic-Con’s director of marketing and public relations. “With the impressive roster of talent we already have lined up for 2011, we expect that enthusiasm to continue and for the 2011 show to be one to remember.”

Comic-Con 2011 will be held July 21-24 at the San Diego Convention Center. Passes to the show’s Preview Night on July 20 were sold out during this summer’s 2010 convention, although more four-day passes with Preview Night may be released closer to the show, depending on returns or cancellations.

Following is the current list of special guests confirmed for the 2011 convention:

Jordi Bernet (Spanish comics artist known in the U.S. for the hardboiled Torpedo series and for DC’s Jonah Hex)

Bill Schelly (Historian of comics fandom; books include The Golden Age of Comics Fandom, biographies of Joe Kubert and Otto Binder, etc.)

Frank Stack (Pioneering underground cartoonist (as “Foolbert Sturgeon”), artist on many of Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor stories as well as the graphic novel Our Cancer Year)

Mark Tatulli (Cartoonist with two ongoing syndicated strips: Lio and Heart of the City)

Roy Thomas (One of the first fans to become a pro: published early 1960s fanzine Alter Ego, went on to be editor-in-chief at Marvel and write titles such as Conan; currently editing revived Alter Ego magazine)

Maggie Thompson (Editor of Comics Buyers Guide; co-creator of Comic Art, one of the earliest comics fanzines in 1961)

Scott Westerfeld (Author, Uglies, Midnighters series)

About Comic-Con International:
Comic-Con International: San Diego (Comic-Con), the largest comic book convention of its kind in the world, is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to creating awareness of, and appreciation for, comics and related popular art forms, primarily through the presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contribution of comics to art and culture. In addition to its San Diego convention each summer, Comic-Con organizes the San Francisco-based WonderCon each spring and the Alternative Press Expo each fall. On the web: Comic-Con.org, Facebook.com/comiccon, Twitter.com/comic_con.